Joy of scythes

[gregorach]

I am now a proud member of the scythe owner's club!

Just took delivery of a kit from The Scythe Shop yesterday... It's only for controlling the grass and weeds around the allotment, rather than proper field mowing, so I got a 55cm Styria ditch blade and a 40cm Luxor grass blade. I'm a long way from ideal conditions - my paths are narrow and there's all sorts of uneven lumps and bumps to be negotiated - but there's no way I want to get involved in all the nonsense that goes with strimmers of any variety. Given the choice between quiet skill and noisy horsepower, I'll take the former every time. Even after just a preliminary set up and sharpening, I'm very impressed indeed - the Luxor blade especially is a joy to use, cutting through dense tussocks of grass like a hot knife through butter.

Only problem is, now I really want to try some proper scything... I'm going to have to offer to mow the some of my neighbours plots and the communal areas just to get a proper swing going!

[grahamhobbs]

Gregorach great stuff, although I wouldn't myself attempt a scythe on narrow allotment paths, I wish we could convert more people to give up their strimmers. On reasonably level land and without too many obstructions, a scythe is far quicker and easier than a noisy strimmer.

[gregorach]

Given the fiddly nature of the job, I'm probably not going to end up quicker than a strimmer - until you include all the time you spend trying to get the @!*&! thing to work. But I really don't like noisy tools, and I do like sharpening... I expect these scythe blades to last the rest of my life - how many people can say that for their strimmer?

Up until now I've been doing the job with a pair of hand shears, so the scythe is a massive improvement, even if it isn't in anything like its ideal habitat.

[MKG]

Got to agree - the orchard these days is scythed in preference to mowing. Bloody trees get in the way a bit though .

It's positively therapeutic - I've even started peening rather than using the whetstone.

Mike

[grahamhobbs]

Don't forget the humble sickle for the fiddly bits, edges and the like

[gregorach]

Yeah, I've got a Chillington grass sickle, but it's a serrated blade, which makes it effectively unsharpenable... I'm open to suggestions for alternatives.

[pelmetman]

We have a gentleman in our village who celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year and he uses a scythe to cut his grass, and I'm not talking about a little bit of lawn! He still runs his farm and has more stamina then a lot of men half his age. Only a few weeks ago he was off in his tractor followed by the combine out to get the crops in.

Sue

[grahamhobbs]

Gregorach, I picked up a secondhand sickle from a rather trendy reclamation shop in Lewes for a fiver just the other week. They had two, one was fairly modern and not much good, the other was really good with a nice handle, slightly bigger than my current one. I'd always look out for secondhand tools, they are nearly always better than modern ones (although I've heard the Austrian scythes are the bees knees for cutting grass, English scythes, like mine, are a bit heavy and really best for cutting wheat).

[MKG]

"English scythes, like mine, are a bit heavy ..."

Yep - got one of those. It's a beautiful thing in its own right (how on earth did anyone ever work those curves out?). I drag it out from time to time and keep it razor sharp - but more from pride than anything else. It's just too big for what I need to do. So I also have a much lighter jobbie. The main shank is straight, but the very end is turned at just the right angle. The technique is wholly different but it gets the job done.

[phil55494]

Is it a fairly easy to pick up technique, using a scythe? I've wondered about one to keep things down on the allotment. Not sure if t'other half would like it, she doesn't seem to be keen on sharp blades.
A old chap who has a house on the same row as us and has the small padock opposite uses a scythe to cut it once a year, if seems to do all right.

[MKG]

Takes maybe a couple of hours to realise what you should be doing - by which time you hurt! It's mostly the realisation that most of the work is done from the waste rather than the arms, and the sheer weight of a swinging scythe teaches you that pretty quickly. It's rhythmic and feels quite natural - in the end.

But you do need a clear swing, really - I wouldn't suggest it was good to keep a three-foot strip in order. But, if you do have a clear swing, it's a dozen times (I may exaggerate slightly) quicker than a combination of strimmer and mower.

Mike

[gregorach]

But you do need a clear swing, really - I wouldn't suggest it was good to keep a three-foot strip in order.

Maybe not ideal, but then, what is ideal for that sort of job? I'm using mine in places that aren't even three feet wide - but then I have short blades. Sure, it's nowhere near "classical mowing technique", but I'm more interested in simply getting the job done with the minimum of hassle, using a tool I can maintain myself and without fossil fuels. That rules out strimmers, shears are a bloody nightmare, and it's nowhere near flat or regular enough for a cylinder mower. A cylinder mower would also still leave me with all the edges to do with shears (and it's basically all edge, so that would be something like 90% of the job left over), even if it didn't choke on the long grass and encroaching brambles.

As for "the sheer weight of a swinging scythe", you should maybe try one of these modern Austrian scythes... They're really very light. :)

[grahamhobbs]

Phil55494, the most important thing is when swinging the scythe is to keep the blade flat and level on the ground, do not chop at it, do not lift the blade off the ground. It is a sweeping motion, keeping the blade level throughout the swing. If you are right handed, start with your right leg slightly bent and the scythe out to the right and just slightly behind you, you then want to swing the blade through 180deg, changing your weight to the left leg and slightly bending it whilst the right straightens. Depending on what you are cutting, you only cut a few inches each time, to enable you to make a full sweep. The grass should then be left in a neat pile on your left side. You then move forward a few inches and repeat the sweeping action, leaving the cut grass in the same position. This way you will make a cut about 6 foot wide through the grass, leaving the grass in a neat row on one side. Obviously if you are not able to cut a 6ft wide strip, then the proper use of the scythe is going to be restricted and if cutting a narrow area, you tend to use a dragging motion rather than a swing, this is more tiring. It is extremely important that the blade is kept very sharp, this is done as MKG mentioned, by peenning the edge (a very careful technique of hammering the edge to draw it out and make it thinner) before honing with a stone.
Gregorach, I have lots of 'beds' on my allotment with narrow grass paths between, I keep these cut with a sickle to do the edges quickly and then followed by a lawn mower (I've just bought on ebay a cordless battery operated mower - hoping it will do the trick, silently).

[gregorach]

Well, you might not want to hear this, but my general experience of cordless battery operated tools is:

1. The battery is always flat when you want to use it, because you have to flatten the battery completely before recharging it, otherwise the battery dies.
2. The battery dies anyway.
3. Even when they "work", they're rubbish.
4. They break down too easily.
5. They're difficult to impossible to repair.

Fortunately, most of my paths are heavy-duty weed control fabric under bark chippings, so it's not like I'm having to mow the whole lot - I'd never get anything else done with my layout.

I completely agree that a scythe is probably not the ideal tool for the job, but even having never handled one before, it's still the best tool I've ever used for the job. I had hoped the sickle would do it, but cutting two 20m edges with a sickle is back-breaking, and there's the aforementioned problem with sharpening.

[MKG]

This is good to watch ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx_PDiEjW_E

It's all good fun and massively biased, but the third (?) bout is very interesting, as he's the only one who has anything like the classical technique, and he literally leaves the brush cutter standing.

It's also worth listening to a few folk songs - sea shanties had their place, but mowing songs served exactly the same purpose, which is getting into the rhythm of the whole thing (very important when the bloke standing six feet away from you was also swinging a scythe).

Mike